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The story of Traffic, takes place over the course of a single day and is inspired by a real-life incident from Chennai, as shown in the credits. In Pune, superstar Dev Kapoor's daughter is sick and needs an urgent heart transplant. Elsewhere in Mumbai, trainee journalist Rehan meets with an accident and is declared clinically dead. Rehan's parents decide to donate his heart to Dev's daughter. However, rains and low visibility conditions make it impossible to transport the heart by air and the only option is to traverse the 150 km by road. Though initially apprehensive, Joint Traffic Commissioner Gurbir Singh accepts the challenge and seeks a volunteer from among his men to drive at 120 km/h with Tata Safari Storme, through the busy Mumbai streets. Disgraced traffic constable Godbole (who has just rejoined the force after being suspended for taking a bribe to help his sister) puts up his hand and thus begins the journey. He is joined by Rehan's friend Rajeev and Dr Abel, a surgeon, who is battling his own personal demons.

The movie is a remake of Rajesh Pillai's Malayalam thriller of the same name. Traffic has been released after a long delay. Unfortunately, directors Rajesh Pillai and Jishnu Raghavan died before they could see the fruit of their efforts onscreen.

Endemol India that has produced several local television shows ventured into feature films,[5] after they acquired the remake rights for the Malayalam film Traffic.[6]Rajesh Pillai who directed the film in Malayalam was retained as director too.[7]Suresh Nair did the Hindi adaptation of the script of Traffic, stating "slight enhancements have been made in the feel and action content, to ensure commercial viability. But the script still remains the brilliant script that the original is".[8]

Two Bengali actors, Parambrata Chatterjee and Prosenjit Chatterjee were also signed in. The director confirmed that Manoj Bajpai would play the role of a constable, Parambrata Chatterjee would play a doctor and Prosenjit Chatterjee would play a superstar.[9]

Mithoon was signed as the music composer and had already recorded three songs for the film by May 2013.[9]

Pillai stated that the film would be entirely shot on the Mumbai Pune Expressway and Hyderabad.[9] In late August, the first schedule had been completed at Hyderabad. The final schedule started on 2 September at Mumbai.

Meena Iyer of The Times of India gave it 4 stars out of 5, describing film as a well-intentioned movie with fine performances from its ensemble cast.[15] Anna MM Vetticad of Firstpost quoted that it is Needless messaging which spoils this Manoj Bajpayee-starrer.[16] Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave it 2 stars out of 5, and quoted that Crispness and the sense of urgency is missing in movie.[17] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave it 4 stars out of 5, describing the film as a fitting swan song: an unmissable film.[18]

Sweta Kaushal of Hindustan Times gave it 4 stars out of 5, titled that A Tight script, stellar performances make it a must-watch.[19] Prarthna Sarkar of International Business Times gave it 3 stars out of 5, describing it as a must watch.[20] Namarta Joshi of The Hindu quoted 'Traffic' wears thin, feels rushed. There is neither much of an emotional tug nor an edge-of-the-seat urgency that the film promised to deliver.[21] Sukanya Verma from Rediff.com gave it 2 stars out of 5, said movie is muddled and lacklustre in its set-up.[22]Bollywood Hungama gave it 2 stars out of 5.[23] Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in said that the remake of the Malayalam hit loses the essence of the original and movie titled 'Traffic' goes nowhere.